A new survey has revealed a sharp generational split in United States attitudes towards Israel’s war on Gaza, with younger voters showing unprecedented support for Hamas as Israel carries out a genocide.

The poll, conducted by The Harris Poll and HarrisX between 20 and 21 August among 2,025 registered voters, asked respondents: “In the Israel-Hamas conflict, do you support more Israel or more Hamas?”

Sixty percent of voters aged 18–24 expressed greater support for Hamas, in stark contrast to older demographics, where backing for Israel rose steadily: 65 percent among ages 25–34, 70 percent among ages 35–44, 74 percent among ages 45–54, 84 percent among those aged 55–64, and 89 percent of voters over 65.

  • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Why wouldn’t you support Hamas? They objectively, according to Israel’s own numbers, are better at avoiding civilian casualties than the IDF. And they take far fewer hostages. The only reason anyone can conclude that Hamas is the more immoral military force is if they have classist beliefs about violence. Many subconsciously believe that killing someone remotely with a bomb dropped from a plane is somehow more ethical than killing someone up close with an AK-47. Hamas is objectively a more ethical military force than the IDF. Neither are particularly moral, but between the two of them, Hamas takes much better care of civilians than the IDF does.

    • geneva_convenience@lemmy.mlOP
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      1 day ago

      Hamas are actually pretty moral compared to other resistance groups

      • Hamas goes to great lengths to avoid killing children.

      • Hamas primarily target military bases.

      • Hamas doesn’t torture their captives.

      • Hamas doesn’t rape women

      • Hamas doesn’t steal food from aid trucks or civilians.

      • Hamas doesn’t steal money from civilians

      • Hamas doesn’t lay ambushes against IDF soldiers near civilian areas. Which would be much easier.

      • Hamas asked before they took a banana once.

      And much more. Keep in mind that almost all slander about Hamas such as using “bases underneath hospitals” turned out to be a complete lie.

      The West has to lie about Hamas to make them look bad.

        • BrainInABox@lemmy.ml
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          They killed and took hostage many civilians in the Oct attacks.

          In order to trade for the much grater number of civilians that Israel has taken. They are following the rules of war that have been offered to them.

          They continue to fight Israel with no possible upside despite this causing children to starve.

          Fuck off, genocide apologist. Hamas isn’t forcing Israel to exterminate the children of Gaza, and them rolling over and giving up the fight wouldn’t help anyone.

          As soon as you defend Hamas, you make any argument against Israel a hypocritical joke.

          The British Empire was also evil, so does anyone who defends them in WW2 make any argument against Nazi Germany a hypocritical joke?

  • Linktank@lemmy.today
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    2 days ago

    As Trump taught us, a good 1/3 of people in general are simply mentally deficient.

        • Maeve@kbin.earth
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          I wish that were true. I’ve been thinking about this. While eq may well be a part of IQ, clever people really need not have it, but merely be able to mimic it convincingly. I think for every Cluster B personality doing heinous things caught and segregated from society, dozens more are integrated into it. For example genociders and their supporters, alleged CEO murderers and CEOs.

          There’s always the argument that there’s a difference between cleverness and manipulativeness, but if one can fake emotion well enough to orchestrate manipulativeness for decades or centuries, is that not some sort of cleverness?

          Remember survival of the fittest doesn’t depend on mere intelligence alone, but adaptability. So it’s an interesting thought experiment.

  • Piperpiper1@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    The 25-44 crowd would unironically say they would’ve stood up to Hitler/been against slavery/etc.

    It’s fun to make up hypotheticals with no unknown-unknowns and definitions that you get to make up, tho. You get to fellate yourself while not doing anything of actual value or needing moral courage.

    • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      I think my millennial age cohort is in the “anti-slavery/anti-John Brown” camp. They know the institution is bad (Israel, slavery) but don’t support violence against it because they think violence is inherently bad.

      Y’know, morons.

      • WoodScientist@lemmy.world
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        I’m a Millennial and I don’t think violence is a good thing, but I believe you do need to judge these things comparatively. And the only real comparison that can be made here is between the military forces of both sides - the IDF vs. Hamas. And, by raw numbers alone, Hamas is the more ethical fighting force. Using Israel’s own numbers, Hamas does a much, much better job at avoiding civilian casualties than the IDF. I can’t make a judgment on the ethics of violence, but I can look at the ratios of civilian to military casualties on both sides. And by the numbers alone, Hamas kills proportionally fewer civilians and takes far fewer hostages than the IDF. That seems the only metric to judge the ethics of an armed force. By numbers alone, Hamas is objectively far more ethical than the IDF.

        • queermunist she/her@lemmy.ml
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          That’s a reasonable view, but there are a lot of people in our generational cohort who actually believe pacifism is the only justified response to oppression. In their minds, no amount of crimes done by Israel can ever justify Palestinian violence.

  • Mrkawfee@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    At this point the only people in Gen Z (or any gen) who back Israel have either been indoctrinated by Zionist propaganda, choose to back it for career purposes, or are neocon psychopaths.

  • melsaskca@lemmy.ca
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    1 day ago

    Hamas and Israel are both uber violent. I hope those kids support Palestinians and had better “poll” questions asked of them.